Piggly Wiggly
Piggly Wiggly is a supermarket chain in the in Midwest and South regions of the United States.
History
Piggly Wiggly was the first true self-service grocery store.[1] It was founded on September 6, 1916, at 79 Jefferson Street in Memphis, Tennessee, by Clarence Saunders. A replica of the original store has been constructed in the Memphis Pink Palace Museum, which was originally a mansion that Saunders built as his private residence which was later sold to the city.
For the first time, customers at Piggly Wiggly entered the store through turnstiles and walked through four aisles to view the store’s 605 items sold in packages and organized into departments. They selected their goods as they continued through the maze to a cashier. Instantly, packaging and brand recognition became important to companies and consumers. Without self-service, modern branded packaged goods would not exist. The concept of the "self-serving store" was patented by Saunders in 1917.
Piggly Wiggly Corporation, secured the self-service format and issued franchises to hundreds of grocery retailers for the operation of Piggly Wiggly stores. The success of Piggly Wiggly was phenomenal. At its peak, the company was operating 2,660 stores and posting sales of $180 million a year. Other independent and chain grocery stores changed to self-service through the 1930s. Saunders lost control of the company in a famous Wall Street bear raid, and his company was soon carved up by Merrill Lynch and sold off to regional grocery chains, including Safeway, Kroger, National Tea, and Colonial.[2]
After losing control of Piggly Wiggly, Saunders had no further association with the company.
The smaller Piggly Wiggly Corporation continued to prosper as franchiser for the hundreds of independently owned grocery stores franchised to operate under the Piggly Wiggly name and over the next several decades, functioned successfully under various owners.
Present company
There are presently over 600 independently owned and operated stores in 17 states. The company headquarters is in Keene, New Hampshire[3].
Some of the stores have formed a retailers' cooperative to manage distribution, while using the Piggly Wiggly name. See e.g. the Piggly Wiggly Alabama Distributing Company. Piggly Wiggly stores are found predominately in medium- to smaller-sized towns and can still be found in prevalence in many rural communities. In many areas (especially faster growing areas), competitive grocers have built bigger stores with larger selections and have tried targeting a more upscale clientele. This has forced the closure of many Piggly Wiggly stores and has given the chain a reputation in many areas as having lower quality products, limited selection, older run-down stores, and in some cases higher prices than the competition. In response, Piggly Wiggly has developed a discount card/member program similar to many other grocers.
Competitors
Piggly Wiggly was a pioneer in the modern self-serve shopping concept and its model is used not only by virtually all other grocery supermarkets, but retail chains as well.
Piggly Wiggly in Popular Culture
- As early as 1922, the store is mentioned in Sinclair Lewis' novel Babbitt, when George's wife complains she's tired of "... going down to the Piggly Wiggly to market, and bringing my basket home to save money on the cash-and-carry and -- everything!"
- The Piggly Wiggly store appears in the movies Driving Miss Daisy, Space Jam, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, Steel Magnolias, King Kong Lives, Elvis is Alive! I Swear I Just Saw Him Eating a Ding Dong, and Mississippi Masala.
- Decoy Piggly Wiggly trucks appear in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
- In O Brother, Where Art Thou?, one of the characters admits to robbing a Piggly Wiggly.
- It is mentioned in the movies Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and Sweet Home Alabamain several episodes of the TV series That 70's Show also mentioned in TV Show Clarissa Explains it All.
- In the film Bonnie and Clyde, Buck Barrow reads a newspaper article that links the Barrow Gang with the robbery of a Piggly Wiggly.
- In the film Run Ronnie Run, protagonist Ronnie Dobbs is arrested for (among other things) vandalizing a Piggly Wiggly sign.
- In the film Pootie Tang, the main character's magic belt was bought at the Piggly Wiggly.
- In an episode of the television series Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Sabrina needs to buy magical jumping beans from the Other Realm, but she does not want to shop at the Piggly Wiggly because "Pigs aren't very good at making change."
- In an episode of Pinky and the Brain, a chain letter implies that "someone didn't send this and got his head cut off, but someone did and got a 5-hour shopping spree at the Piggly Wiggly!"
- In Fried Green Tomatoes, Kathy Bates' character enters a parking lot altercation in a Piggly Wiggly parking lot.
Songs
- A song about the grocery store chain includes the lyrics:
-
- Piggly Wiggly, what does it mean?
- Piggly Wiggly I've never seen!
- Is it a piggy or is it a worm?
- I'd never touch it might make me squirm!
- If I shall see one I'll tell you more.
- Grandmother says it's a grocery store!
- A song concerning Piggly Wiggly was originally recorded by Charlie McFadden in the early 1930s, to be reperformed by various musicians throughout the years.
- Family Force 5's single "Kountry Gentleman" mentions Piggly Wiggly in the line "tailgate party at the PigWig".
- Piggly Wiggly has used an advertising jingle: "Piggly Wiggly, Shop the Pig!"
- Martin Sexton mentions the Piggly Wiggly in his song "Diner".
- In her song "Groceries on the shelf", blues singer Lucille Bogan makes an analogy between sexual availability and the self-service concept of Piggly Wiggly stores.
Patent
- U.S. Patent - Self-serving store -- C. Saunders
References
- ^ http://www.memphismuseums.org/piggly%20wiggly.htm
- ^ Godfrey M. Lebhar, Chain Stores in America 1859-1959, Colonial Press 1959: 31.
- ^ Piggly Wiggly Today. Piggly Wiggly. Retrieved on 2007-06-30.
See also
- Food Giant: a supermarket chain that has franchises of Piggly Wiggly
- Toyota Production System: partly inspired by processes in Piggly Wiggly
External links
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